


What To Do

by ididntgetthejoke



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Acting, Feelings Realization, Fluff, High School, M/M, One Shot, Shakespeare Quotations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 03:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17480336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ididntgetthejoke/pseuds/ididntgetthejoke
Summary: Richie turns into a theatre kid. Eddie doesn't get it.





	What To Do

**Author's Note:**

> i've never kept anything posted for very long on this account, but i actually feel kinda okay with this?  
> this isn't beta'd (proof-read? i actually have no idea what the fanfic lingo is), just an idea i had because i think the trashmouth would lose his shit over playing someone named "good penis"

“Pleeeaase?”

“I’m not an actor.”

“You don’t have to be! I just need to run lines with someone, come on.”

“Ugh,” Eddie sighs. “Gimme that.” He snatches the book. While Richie is a slacker, in the kindest of words, he’s very smart. He’s capable of excelling in everything, he just doesn’t. But when he’s excited about something, he throws himself in completely. The play seems to be one of those things. This is evident by the worn spine of the script, the title barely even visible from how much it’s been folded. Flipping it open, Eddie comes across a mess of highlighter, covering large blocks of text and a few single lines and couplets. A lot to memorize, Eddie thinks. He wonders if Richie has actually managed to remember all this, considering how short his attention span is. Then again, Richie also remembers incidents from third grade that he won’t fucking let go.

“Act four, scene one. 141,” Richie instructs. Huh. So he does remember this stuff, even the numbers.

Eddie obeys and finds the ending half of the book. 132, 138, 140, 141. He reads, _‘[All but Beatrice and Benedick] exit’_ and sees Richie’s highlighting has taken more of a pattern on for the dialogue. In the margins is Richie’s hurried scrawl, the pencil has made deep dents in the paper. They say things like 'cross SL to B' and 'follow B'. It looks almost like a code. Surprisingly professional. Eddie reads the lines that are not highlighted, spoken by the character Beatrice.

“Ready?” Richie tests. Eddie’s been silent a while, making sure he knows what he’s going to say before he trips over his words. He snaps his head back up, registers, and nods.

It’s something Eddie hasn’t really seen before, and he’s seen many sides of Richie through the years. When Eddie confirms he’s ready, Richie’s face falls. Eddie might have been concerned that Richie suddenly looked so worried if he didn’t know he was about to read a scene with him. Honestly, he expected the two of them to just deadpan through this thing to make sure Richie was getting the words right. But no, Richie’s acting. Like, _acting_  acting.

“Lady Beatrice,” Richie starts, kneeling in front of Eddie just as he does in rehearsal with Sandy. “Have you wept all this while?”

Eddie only has so much time to mask his surprise. Even when Richie asks if someone’s okay, he does so as casually as he can. This is not casual, this is sincere and distressed. “Yea, and I will weep a while longer,” Eddie reads. He’s not going to act like he’s crying, this is a surprisingly serious scene for a comedy. He doesn’t want to ruin it by pretending to cry.

“I will not desire that,” Richie responds, as if they normally spoke this way.

“You have no reason; I do it freely,” Eddie continues.

Richie purses his lips. “Surely, I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.” He bows his head just slightly, as people do when they’re trying to convince someone of the truth.

“Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.” There’s an exclamation point at the end, but Eddie feels suddenly very self conscious and he doesn’t want to yell anything even within the confines of Richie’s bedroom.

“Is there any way to show such friendship?”

“A very even way, but no such friend.”

“May a man do it?”

“It is a man's office, but not yours.”

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you.” When they were reading this in English class, Richie was called on to read outloud. Most teachers knew that asking Richie Tozier to read outloud was a mistake. This substitute couldn’t have known that calling on Richie to ‘play a part’ would result in a silly voice and the classroom devolving into laughter. At the time, Richie took on a muppet-y, Frank Oz persona, speaking backwards with his lips pressed into a cartoonish frown. Now? No voices. In fact, Richie smiles. As Benedick, he’s discovered this for the first time. He’s telling the woman he loves how he feels. “Is not that strange?”

Eddie sort of knows the plot from reading it in class and he vaguely remembers this scene. He remembers Beatrice being hard and distraught, so he does his best to deny Richie like he would any other time. “As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you,” he says, lifting his chin as if to look away but brings the script with his eyes so he can continue reading. “But believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.”

Richie pulls himself closer on his knee. “By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me,” he persists, trying to catch Eddie’s eyes. Of course Eddie won’t look away from the script, but that’s good, Beatrice isn’t convinced yet.

“Do not swear and eat it,” Eddie argues, turning his head the other way so that Richie can speak only to his hair.

Richie switches sides, attempting a similar tactic. “I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.”

“Will you not eat your word?” Eddie isn’t totally sure what this is supposed to mean exactly, but he takes it to be a sort of ‘Are you serious?’ Beatrice is coming around.

“With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee,” Richie vows, bowing his head. He keeps his eyes on Eddie, peering over the frames of his glasses.

“Why then, God forgive me.” Again, another exclamation point that Eddie is not going to acknowledge.

Richie frowns, the same way he does on the occasions when he’s realized a joke has gone too far in time to stop himself. “What offence, sweet Beatrice?”

“You have stayed me in a happy hour.” Wait, wasn’t Beatrice crying before? Why would she be happy? “I was about to protest I loved you.”

Relief washes over Richie face and he straightens his spine out. “And do it with all thy heart.”

“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.” Okay, Eddie understands. Beatrice wasn’t sure Benedick really meant it until now, but she’s happy knowing he does. She loves him too.

“Come.” Richie places his hand on Eddie’s knee and _woah_ , the way he’s looking at him with complete devotion makes Eddie’s stomach do a little flip. “Bid me do anything for thee.”

"Ki—" Wait, how the fuck is he supposed to say this? Weren’t they just talking about love, how did they get to murder? He tries anyway. “Kill Claudio.”

Richie takes his hand back, eyes wide. “Ha!” It’s not really a laugh, it’s clearly written in the script. Richie says it sarcastically and starts to look a little more like Richie. “Not for the wide world.”

The stakes rise, from what Eddie gathers. Beatrice keeps interrupting Benedick and telling him to let her go, Richie returns from sarcasm to desperation. Richie keeps trying to get Eddie to look directly at him, but based on the lines, Beatrice is having none of it. Benedick pleads with her. “I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving,” Eddie declares after a rather lengthy block of text. Before he can think of a way to phrase his displeasure with having to read so much when he’s not the one in a play, Richie grabs his hand.

“Tarry, good Beatrice!” Richie folds both of his hands over Eddie’s and holds it to his chin. Still kneeling, his eyes look even bigger when looking up. Very few people physically had to look up at Eddie, that alone is jarring. But then Richie says, “By this hand, I love thee.” He kisses Eddie’s knuckles and Eddie momentarily loses his place in the script.

“Use, um, use it for my love some other way than swearing by it,” he resumes.

“Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?”

“Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.”

Richie gets to his feet, determined. “Enough, I am engaged; I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must say she is dead: and so, farewell.”

Eddie is frozen for several seconds, just staring. Rationally, he understands that this is acting and his cousin has not had her reputation tarnished and Richie is not promising revenge on Eddie’s behalf. He knows that the stage instructions say ‘ _exeunt’_ and the scene is over. He knows Richie didn’t really swear his love on his knees. But that uneasy feeling in his stomach isn’t going away and no amount of logic seems to help.

Richie breaks into his familiar smile, light returns to his eyes, and he takes the script back. “Thanks, Eds. That scene’s been killin’ me.”

_Fuck._

**Author's Note:**

> i kinda wanna make more of this story? if anyone would be interested in that, lmk


End file.
